Jim Moseley, RIP

Sad news, everyone: ufology humorist and writer James W. Moseley, 81, died Friday. He had been undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer. Jim was the long-time publisher of “Saucer Smear” magazine, which both celebrated and lampooned the the UFO world from an insider’s viewpoint.

Loren Coleman memorializes Jim here. Researcher and friend, Jerome Clark, wrote that, despite his massive presence in the field, “he was less interested in UFOs as such…than in the social world of persons concerned, intelligently or otherwise, with UFOs. His role in the UFO subculture cannot be captured in a single word. And if one has to use two, it was sui generis.” Upon hearing of the death of Moseley, Anomalist Books publisher and editor Patrick Huyghe said: “He was one of the last remaining old timers from the golden age of flying saucers. Goodbye, Jim.”

Let’s tax this diocese, can I get an Amen from the choir? A Minnesota teen has been denied confirmation into the Catholic Church because he posted a picture on his Facebook wall expressing opposition to a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have banned LGBT civil marriage equality. WDAY reports: “It is a shock for the family. All baptized, married here at Assumption. Now the couple says they cannot even have communion here. Lennon’s mother says she won’t return. A church, she says, should be welcoming people, not pushing them away.”

Scientists are finding hope for treating disorders like multiple sclerosis by using nanoparticles to selectively troll the body’s immune system. They injected nanoparticles attached to myelin antigens – proteins to stop the immune system from recognizing the myelin sheath as an alien invader – which reset the immune system to normal and halted the attack. Nanoparticles have already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the US for a different use and could be easily manufactured making the treatment cheaper than other approaches.

Some of it used to make sense! In “Descent of the Republicans”, Mark Sumner tracks the arc of GOP ideology from nuanced to reactionary by contrasting passages from platform and campaign statements over the last 30-odd years. It’s a damned good read containing not a few surprises.

“Attacks against civilian targets constitute war crimes,” said Christophe Deloire, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, after media complexes in two separate buildings in Gaza City were targeted by Israeli air-strikes early Sunday. “We remind the Israeli authorities that, under humanitarian law, the news media enjoy the same protection as civilians and cannot be regarded as military targets.” The Foreign Press Association (FPA) expressed their “concern” with Israel’s strike on a “media building housing FPA members Sky News, Sky News Arabia, MBC TV, Al-Arabiya, ORF and other European broadcasters.” A spokesman of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tweeted that “No Western journalists were hurt” in the attacks on the media buildings, which suggests the lives of non-Western journalists are meaningless to Israel.